In this edition of Coffee with Calyptus, we chat with Mikheil Didebulidze, a founder whose journey spans fintech, clean energy, and gaming. From launching one of the first Bitcoin mining operations in Georgia to harnessing AI to redefine DeFi, Mikheil shares invaluable lessons on resilience, adaptability, and the future of technology. He passes along invaluable insights on navigating uncertainty, leading innovation, and the evolving role of AI in decentralized finance.
Across your experience in energy, fintech, and gaming, which industry challenged you to grow the most and why?
Each industry pushed me in different ways, but fintech especially building in Web3 challenged me to grow the most. Clean energy taught me discipline, structure, and how to deliver complex projects within regulation-heavy environments. Gaming taught me how to engage communities emotionally, to build products people genuinely care about. But fintech, particularly decentralized finance, forced me to rethink everything I knew about systems, value, and trust.
In Web3, the rules change daily. You can’t rely on legacy models you have to blend creativity with precision, and build in public with communities that demand transparency. It’s an environment that constantly tests adaptability, leadership, and conviction. That’s where I’ve grown the most as both an operator and a founder
How did your work with diverse international teams in Georgia and Italy shape your approach to leadership?
Working between Georgia and Italy shaped my leadership in very complementary ways. Georgia taught me resilience how to build with limited resources, stay adaptable, and move fast despite uncertainty. Italy, on the other hand, showed me the power of design thinking, empathy, and quality that innovation isn’t only about speed, but about creating experiences people connect with.
Blending those two cultures taught me to lead with both discipline and creativity to build things that are efficient, but also meaningful.
What’s the boldest risk you’ve taken with a startup idea, and what did you learn regardless of the outcome?
The boldest risk I took was launching one of the first Bitcoin mining and exchange operations in Georgia years before the industry had any regulatory clarity or real infrastructure. At that time, there was no playbook we were building in complete uncertainty, trying to bridge global finance and a new, untested digital economy.
It taught me two things that still guide me today: first, that timing is everything being early is powerful, but only if you can sustain until the market matures. And second, conviction matters more than comfort. Even when that venture didn’t scale long term, it gave me the foundation to understand risk, technology, and regulation lessons that shaped how I now build in DeFi and AI with a long-term view.
How are you leveraging AI to drive new value in DeFi and web3, and what excites you most about its future potential?
At VS1 Finance, we’re using AI to make DeFi more accessible and intelligent. Most DeFi platforms assume users already understand complex tokenomics or liquidity mechanics but AI can bridge that gap. Our system uses AI agents to analyze portfolios, surface opportunities, and guide users through actions in plain language. It transforms a passive dashboard into an active assistant that helps people make informed, confident decisions.
What excites me most is how AI is evolving from automation to intuition from executing commands to understanding intent. Convergence of autonomy, data, and user empowerment is where the real disruption will happen.
We hope you enjoyed this edition of Coffee with Calyptus. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep building what matters. Explore more editions and insightful articles at
